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MBLAZE(7)		Miscellaneous Information Manual	     MBLAZE(7)

NAME
       mblaze -- introduction to the mblaze message system

DESCRIPTION
       The mblaze message system is a set of Unix utilities for	processing and
       interacting with	mail messages which are	stored in maildir folders.

       Its design is roughly inspired by MH, the RAND Message Handling System,
       but it is a complete implementation from	scratch.

       mblaze consists of these	Unix utilities that each do one	job:

       maddr(1)	    extract mail addresses from	messages
       magrep(1)    search messages matching a pattern
       mbnc(1)	    bounce messages
       mcom(1)	    compose and	send messages
       mdeliver(1)  deliver messages or	import mbox file
       mdirs(1)	    list maildir folders, recursively
       mexport(1)   export messages as mbox file
       mflag(1)	    manipulate maildir message flags
       mflow(1)	    reflow format=flowed plain text messages
       mfwd(1)	    forward messages
       mgenmid(1)   generate a Message-ID
       mhdr(1)	    print message headers
       minc(1)	    incorporate	new messages
       mless(1)	    conveniently read messages in less(1)
       mlist(1)	    list and filter messages
       mmime(1)	    create MIME	messages
       mmkdir(1)    create new maildir folders
       mpick(1)	    advanced message filter
       mrefile(1)   move or copy messages between maildir folders
       mrep(1)	    reply to messages
       mscan(1)	    generate one-line message summaries
       msed(1)	    manipulate message headers
       mseq(1)	    manipulate message sequences
       mshow(1)	    render messages and	extract	MIME parts
       msort(1)	    sort messages
       mthread(1)   arrange messages into discussions

       mblaze  is a classic command line MUA and has no	features for receiving
       or transferring messages; you  can  operate  on	messages  in  a	 local
       maildir	spool,	or  fetch  your	 messages  using  fdm(1),  getmail(1),
       offlineimap(1),	or  similar  utilities,	 and  send  it	using  dma(8),
       msmtp(1), sendmail(8), as provided by OpenSMTPD,	Postfix, or similar.

       mblaze  operates	 directly  on  maildir folders and doesn't use its own
       caches or databases.  There is no setup	needed	for  many  uses.   All
       utilities  have	been written with performance in mind.	Enumeration of
       all messages in a maildir is avoided unless necessary, and  then	 opti-
       mized  to  limit	 syscalls.   Parsing  message metadata is optimized to
       limit I/O requests.  Initial operations on a  large  maildir  may  feel
       slow,  but  as soon as they are in the file system cache, everything is
       blazingly fast.	The utilities are written to be	memory efficient (i.e.
       not wasteful), but whole	messages are assumed to	fit  into  RAM	easily
       (one at a time).

       mblaze  has been	written	from scratch and is now	well tested, but it is
       not 100%	RFC-conforming (which is neither  worth	 it,  nor  desirable).
       There may be issues with	very old, nonconforming, messages.

       mblaze is written in portable C,	using only POSIX functions (apart from
       a  tiny Linux-only optimization), and has no external dependencies.  It
       supports	MIME  and  more	 than  7-bit  messages	(everything  the  host
       iconv(3)	 can  decode).	 It  assumes  you work in a UTF-8 environment.
       mblaze works well with other Unix utilities such	as  mairix(1),	mu(1),
       or offlineimap(1).

EXAMPLES
       mblaze  utilities are designed to be composed together in a pipe.  They
       are suitable for	interactive use	and for	scripting, and integrate  well
       into a Unix workflow.

       For  example,  you could	decide you want	to look	at all unseen messages
       in your INBOX, oldest first.
	     mlist -s ~/Maildir/INBOX |	msort -d | mscan

       To operate on a set of messages in multiple steps, you can save it as a
       sequence, e.g. add a call to `mseq -S' to the above command:
	     mlist -s ~/Maildir/INBOX |	msort -d | mseq	-S | mscan

       Now mscan will show message numbers and you could  look	at  the	 first
       five messages at	once, for example:
	     mshow 1:5

       Likewise,  you  could decide to incorporate (by moving from new to cur)
       all new messages	in all folders,	thread it  and	look  at  it  interac-
       tively:
	     mdirs ~/Maildir | xargs minc | mthread | mless

       Or  you	could  list the	attachments of the 20 largest messages in your
       INBOX:
	     mlist ~/Maildir/INBOX | msort -S |	tail -20 | mshow -t

       Or apply	the patches from the current message:
	     mshow -O. '*.diff'	| patch

       As usual	with pipes, the	sky is the limit.

CONCEPTS
       mblaze deals with  messages  (which  are	 files),  folders  (which  are
       maildir	folders),  sequences  (which  are  newline-separated  lists of
       messages, possibly saved	on disk	in ${MBLAZE:-$HOME/.mblaze}/seq),  and
       the	current	     message	 (kept	   as	  a	symlink	    in
       ${MBLAZE:-$HOME/.mblaze}/cur).

       Messages	in the saved sequence can be referred to using special	syntax
       as explained in mmsg(7).

       Many  utilities	have a default behavior	when used interactively	from a
       terminal	(e.g. operate on the current message or	the current sequence).
       For scripting, you must make these arguments explicit.

       For configuration, see mblaze-profile(5).

SEE ALSO
       mailx(1), mblaze-profile(5), nmh(7)

AUTHORS
       Leah Neukirchen <leah@vuxu.org>

       There is	 a  mailing  list  available  at  mblaze@googlegroups.com  (to
       subscribe,   send   a  message  to  mblaze+subscribe@googlegroups.com);
       archives	are available at https://inbox.vuxu.org/mblaze/.   There  also
       is an IRC channel #vuxu on irc.libera.chat.  Please report security-re-
       lated bugs directly to the author.

LICENSE
       mblaze is in the	public domain.

       To  the	extent possible	under law, the creator of this work has	waived
       all copyright and related or neighboring	rights to this work.

       http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

FreeBSD	Ports 14.quarterly     January 18, 2020			     MBLAZE(7)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mblaze&sektion=7&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+14.3.quarterly>

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